Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of an Experimental Thermal-Stratification Flow Case Using ABAQUS/CFD

As the fleet of Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) in the United States begin to reach the end of their original lifespan many of them are undergoing assessment to extend their use. In order to investigate the potential for extending the life of the plant, a system level analysis of components needs to be performed in order to ensure that age and degradation of the system will not lead to a potential safety hazard. An area in which this system level investigation is particularly important is in the surge line of the pressurizer. One possible concern is that over the life of the reactor, the surge line pipe will experience thermal stratification many times. Thermal stratification can lead to significant stresses induced on the piping and over time may result in a less than ideal safety standard. Commercially available code Abaqus CFD was used to model the thermal stratification in a pipe. The corresponding experimental results, available in literature were compared. We found there is a good correlation between the experimental and computational results. However, the results discussed in this paper are based on our preliminary effort to study the capability of ABAQUS code for CFD simulation. A detailed parametric study is one of our future work.